raise the
rent, the Japs move out, the place is renovated, and in the market
again."

The subject interested me, for I am not only a scientist, but a
speculative philosopher as well. The investigation of those phenomena
that lie upon the threshold of the great unknown has always been my
favorite field of research. I believed, even then, that the Oriental
mind, working along different lines than those which we pursue, has
attained knowledge that we know little of. Thinking, therefore, that
these Japs might have some secret inherited from their misty past, I
examined into the matter.

I shall not trouble you with a narration of the incidents which led up
to my acquaintance with Hoku Yamanochi. Suffice it to say that I found
in him a friend who was willing to share with me his whole lore of
quasi-science. I call it this advisedly, for science, as we Occidentals
use the term, has to do only with the laws of matter and sensation; our
scientific men, in fact, recognize the existence of nothing else. The
Buddhistic philosophy, however, goes further.

According to its theories, the soul is sevenfold, consisting of
different shells or envelopes--something like an onion--which are shed
as life passes from the material to the spiritual state. The first, or
lowest, of these is the corporeal body, which, after death, decays and
perishes. Next comes the vital principle, which, departing from the
body, dissipates itself like an odor, and is lost. Less gross than this
is the astral body, which, although immaterial, yet lies near to the
consistency of matter. This astral shape, released from the body at
death, remains for a while in its earthly environment, still preserving
more or less definitely the imprint of the form which it inhabited.

It is this relic of a past material personality, this outworn shell,
that appears, when galvanized into an appearance of life, partly
materialized, as a ghost. It is not the soul that returns, for the soul,
which is immortal, is composed of the four higher spiritual essences
that surround the ego, and are carried on into the next life. These
astral bodies, therefore, fail to terrify the Buddhists, who know them
only as shadows, with no real volition. The Japs, in point of fact, have
learned how to exterminate them.

There is a certain powder, Hoku informed me, which, when burnt in their
presence, transforms them from the rarefied, or semi-spiritual,
condition to the state of matter. The ghost